


Letting Sam Go

by Annehiggins



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst Dean Winchester, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:21:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annehiggins/pseuds/Annehiggins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In <i>Shadow</i>  Sam said Dean would have to let him go once the Thing-That-Killed-Mom had been killed. Sometimes it's not easy to give Sam what he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letting Sam Go

**Author's Note:**

> Posted to Live Journal March 12, 2006 with the following note: his is a stand-alone fic that kept pounding at my brain after watching Shadow. This one is all in Dean's POV and is mostly stream of consciousness angst.

  
**Letting Sam Go**  
By Anne Higgins

Dean Winchester never allowed himself to remember how old his younger brother had been the first time they'd … had sex? It was difficult to think of it like that, but he supposed it was accurate -- at least for Sam.

It had been a hot summer night and the hotel air conditioning wasn't working well, so Dean had stretched out on top of the sheets wearing nothing but his boxers. He'd been drifting between sleep and some pleasant thoughts about the well-endowed waitress in the coffee shop when a naked Sam had stretched out on top of him, thrust twice, then climaxed all over Dean's boxers before Dean could process what was happening.

When Dean's body had decided to let him move, he calmly got Sam back into his own bed, assured his little brother that everything was cool, but that was never, ever going to happen again, then Dean had escaped to the bathroom and had a very quiet mini-meltdown along the theme of oh, my God, what the hell had just happened???!!!???

True to his edict, Dean hadn't let it happen again, although he could tell Sam had wanted it to on more than one occasion, but, contrary to popular thought, Dean could say no when Sam wanted something that wasn't good for him. And Dean couldn't see anything good about adding incest to the mix of things-about-them-that-were-not-normal when all Sam ever did was whine about wanting to be normal. Yeah, he could say no and did, but Sammy seldom made it easy. So Dean had to admit that there had been a huge slice of relief mingling with his sorrow at seeing Sam take off for college.

Four years later Dean had figured Sam must have had enough time to come to his senses about a lot of things. After all, the kid had a fiancée and had gotten the need for a degree out of his system. Sam should have been ready to get back to the family business and seeing his brother as family not a sex toy. Dean bet it wasn't possible to be more wrong than he'd been wrong about all that.

Sam hadn't changed his mind about anything. He'd just gotten older, taller than Dean, and more persistent. And had he mentioned annoying? Within six weeks of the fiancée's death, Sam fucking him had become part of their nightly routine. To this day Dean didn't know how Sam synced that up with going back to school and having a normal life, but he never gave up the fucking or saying he would leave once the Thing-That-Had-Killed-Mom-and-Jess was dead. It did wonderful things for Dean's self-esteem.

He sighed and parked along the side of a small access road that ran the length of the cemetery. Dean remembered the area all too well from the day they'd buried their father. It still hurt to have lost Dad, but in his heart Dean had always known that John Winchester would die with the demon that had killed his wife and destroyed their nice normal lives. He shook his head. Sam wanted that kind of life; Dean knew he could never rest knowing there were other demons out there destroying other normal families. As the divorce lawyers liked to put it, he and Sam had a bad case of irreconcilable differences. In Chicago Sam had told him that when Mom and Jess had been avenged, Dean would have to let Sam go. He'd come here to do just that.

It was a beautiful cemetery with a lot of old graceful trees. Dean had always liked the idea of his mother resting here and while it had been a long time since Lawrence, Kansas had any tie to the Winchesters, it had pleased him to see Dad buried beside her. He hoped they were both at peace. His own grave was here, too. Had been since shortly after he had collected Sam from Stanford and they'd gone in search of Dad. Obviously, Dean wasn't in there. Instead the ashes of a shape-shifter filled his spot in the family plot. It still made it the logical place for Sam to come when he got the news.

An hour slipped by while Dean watched and waited. He knew when Sam's flight from San Francisco was due in so he could have cut it closer, but he wanted to spend some time here himself. He knew he'd never visit again. Not even when he truly was dead. A John Doe-death and an unmarked grave in some potter's field would be Dean's destiny. Today would ensure that, so he took absurd comfort from knowing something held his place here. Weird, but weird had become sort of a synonym for his life.

Safely hidden behind a stand of trees, Dean watched a cab approach. A few minutes later it stopped as close as the main road came to the Winchester plot, then Sam got out. He looked terrible and Dean had to clench his fists to keep from going to him. Damn, he wished he hadn't had to do this to Sammy, but there'd been no other way to give him what he'd wanted. He kept focused on that – this was what Sam wanted, what he'd always wanted and it was the last gift Dean could give to him. It let Dean stay put as Sam approached the graves.

He had to bite his lip to hold his ground when Sam sank to his knees and began to sob. Tears filled Dean's eyes, then spilled down his cheeks. He would have done anything to spare his brother this pain. Anything but go to him. Just as Sam had made it clear he would do anything for Dean. Anything but stay with him. Was it petty to have such a thought? He supposed it was, but Dean had been so tired for so long. Sam had always been everything to him, but he'd never been enough for Sam. Not even when he'd relented and let Sam have his body. He couldn't give Sam a house with a white picket fence, a dog and 2.5 children. He couldn't even give up hunting and be weird Uncle Dean who lived down the street and worked in Al's Garage. All he could do was stand here and let Sam go freely to what he'd always wanted – a life that had nothing whatsoever to do with hunting or a brother who considered hunting his life's work.

Dean wanted to leave, but if he couldn't go to Sam, he couldn't leave him here alone either. So he stood and watched as Sam said his goodbyes. It took about an hour. Dean figured thirty minutes for the grief and thirty for the guilt. Sam didn't deserve the guilt and Dean wasn't proud of forcing it on him, but at the same time it was inevitable – Dean would die on a hunt because he was alone with no one to watch his back. It was the fate Sam had condemned him to every time he'd wailed about wanting a normal life while knowing Dean would hunt until the day he died. He wanted to hate Sam for that, but he couldn't. He loved Sam. With everything he was, Dean loved Sam. So he watched, and loved him and grieved for what he had to put Sam through.

He almost faltered as Sam got back into the cab, almost ran after it as he watched his brother, his partner, his lover drive away and the utter emptiness settled over him. He was alone now. Alone in a way no one could ever be as long as someone loved you and waited for you to come home. He choked back a sob. He would not cry for himself. He. Would. Not.

Once he got control of himself, he went back to where he'd left his transportation. He was too tired to give the dark green Jeep the proper glare of contempt it deserved. Damn, he missed the Impala, but it was an identifier he couldn't afford so he'd let it die with Dean Winchester. Harry Williams wasn't nearly as cool. He wore his dark hair too long and pulled it back in a stupid stubby pony tail and the goatee did nothing to enhance his appearance. He never flashed a smile if he wasn't running a con and he certainly never flirted. Dean had considered himself married from the moment he'd sighed his surrender and let Sam have his ass. That hadn't changed with his death and Harry's "birth." Pathetic it might be, but a man had to have something to cling to and he'd given up everything else.

He started the engine, then drove away.

*

If Dean had been willing to lay any bets down on how long he'd last, he never would have given himself more than a few months. So he greeted the end of his third year as Harry Williams with amazement. He had a lot more scars of course, but he had the money to pay for doctors now, so they weren't the spectacular pieces of work they would have otherwise been.

Yeah, he had money. About the second week after Dad had died and Sam was half-way through his "sleep for a month" agenda, Dean had dispatched an incubus after a Bill Gates-wannabe. Not really understanding what had happened, but knowing that Dean had saved him from a scandal at best and death at worst, the guy had become Dean's patron. He didn't tell Sam about it because he'd already known what he'd have to do – although he did get the guy to endow the university with a law school scholarship that was promptly awarded to Sam. So anyway, he had money. Meant Harry Williams got to stay in better hotels, eat better food and got better medical care. He also had money for bribes so he didn't have to run as many cons. Which was good since Williams stunk at it. What a loser, but what could you expect from a dude who got his name from a random finger jab into a phone book?

That had been a big part of The Plan. No ties to Dean Winchester. Not even through Dean's sense of humor manifesting itself in false names. Yeah, he'd known what he would have to do since Chicago. He'd quietly made his own connections – information sources that he could use in place of Sam or their father's old contacts who might let it slip that the rumors of Dean's death had been greatly exaggerated.

That was The Plan. No connections to his past life, a different appearance, a random new name and a fucking jeep. No references of a friendly young man with short dark blond hair and a cool old car anywhere. Because he'd known something else since Chicago – he not only had to let Sam go, he had to make Sam let go.

As long as Sammy knew Dean was out there alone and always on the brink of disaster, Sam's guilt would eventually force him to track his brother down. Then the whole bit about working together, wanting to leave for a normal life, then splitting again until guilt made him follow Dean would start all over again. Dean was barely hanging on as it was -- one reunion, then split up after another would destroy him. Worse, Sam would end up hating him, seeing him as the only reason he couldn't have the life he wanted. So Dean had to die.

Staying alive in this business was the trick, so faking his death had been simple. He'd just needed a battle that could reasonably lead to the obliteration of both "his" body and the Impala. He made sure one of Dad's old contacts always knew where he was, knowing he'd get the news to Sam if something happened to him. He got the needed fireworks in Kansas City and easy as that Sam was free. And Dean? Given that he didn't exist anymore he wasn't doing half bad. Sort of.

He got hurt a lot more often, and while he found saving others satisfying, he never had reason to smile anymore. Couldn't even begin to remember the last time he'd laughed. He thought about suicide most days. Avoided it by living job to job, telling himself he had to go on because if he didn't help who would? But he knew he wouldn't last much longer. But hell, he'd made it through three years.

He took his annual trek to California. Did his annual snooping and found out Sam had graduated with honors and had accepted a job with a big Seattle law firm. A corporate shark making money for people with more money than they'd ever need – he guessed the crusading young lawyer putting criminals behind bars or forcing the bigwigs to obey environmental regs didn't go with the white picket fence. Didn't thrill Dean, but it had never been about what he wanted. When he got to Seattle, he discovered that there was more to approve of about the girl. She was the third serious girlfriend in as many years, but he caught sight of them house hunting, so he figured Sammy had a lock on the wife part of the normal-life equation. She was a petite redhead and Dean almost smiled when he saw her standing next to Sam. Figured the top of her head was even with Sam's nipples. Must have made close dancing interesting.

Wedding date wasn't set yet, but knowing Sam it would be soon. The kids Dean would never know would probably start arriving a year after that. He wondered what Sam would tell them about their late uncle Dean, but decided he wouldn't tell them anything. Couldn't see even his name fitting in with all of this. Sam had been right all along – this was the life he wanted. No need to fear Sam kept his hand in and would stumble on any inconvenient information about Dean's activities. "Bye, Sammy," he whispered as the happy couple went inside a lovely ranch house that did indeed have a freaking white picket fence.

He drove away knowing one way or another he wouldn't be alive to make another annual trip. Just didn't have it in him to keep going much longer. He stopped in Tuscan, checked into a motel, then went to get a hair cut and a shave. The last dye job had been a few months back – he'd covered the difference in hair color with a baseball cap – so he looked like himself again when he stared into the mirror. Well, maybe a haunted version of himself.

He drove to a car dealership and unloaded the jeep for a miserably small amount of cash, but he wasn't in the market for a new car so they weren't in a generous mood. Didn't matter – the patron saint of ghostbusters everywhere was still out there and looking after his finances. He figured the guilt at letting the guy down was the last thing keeping him from putting his gun in his mouth. He'd either get over the guilts and eat a bullet or he'd get sloppier and sloppier until something with a lot of claws and teeth did the job for him. It was as inevitable as Sammy leaving him.

A cab took him to a custom garage financed by his patron. A heavy door barring an unused bay was opened and a faint smile touched the corners of his lips. "Hi, baby, did you miss me?" he asked running his hand over the hood of the Impala.

*

Dean Winchester was dead a couple of times over, but no way was he letting a loser like Harry Williams within a mile of his car. These days his ID said he was Dean Samuels, but nothing much else had changed. He still couldn't find the charm for a con, still felt the loneliness eating him alive from the inside out. In some ways having his car back made it worse.

Yeah, for a few days the music of its engine had pleased him, but then the empty passenger seat had started to get to him. The memories were even worse. Sam laughing, talking, sleeping and what they had done in the back seat, on the hood, the trunk – Sammy had always joked about the Impala being his rival and had made a point of including it in their sex games as often as possible. Sometimes it got so bad he had to pull over because he couldn’t see through the tears well enough to drive. He'd given Sam everything he had and left nothing for himself.

Sam had never noticed. The same way he'd never noticed that the Winchesters had been a normal family until the demon had picked them out at random and destroyed them and there was nothing to prevent another demon from deciding to do the same to Sam's new family. The same way he'd never figured out that knowing what Sam knew he'd never be able to relax when his kids talked about monsters in the closet or a co-worker complained about feeling like someone was watching her. Yet somehow Sam had gotten that shinny normal life and Dean had been wrong. God, he wished he could hate Sam. Hell, he wished he could have just a minute or two when he didn't ache for Sammy at his side. Too much to ask, he'd always wanted too much and he didn't have a big brother to make sure he got it anyway.

Somehow he managed to keep hunting and out of shear dumb luck he survived. He knew the world being what it was, after almost every hunt someone mentioned something about him in a blog. He didn't care anymore. There was no one out there trying to track him down and the only amusement he had was thinking about an urban legend developing around the handsome stranger who road into town in an black Impala. Stupid, but at least it was an epitaph of sorts.

When he wasn't in the middle of a hunt, he slept a lot. He usually dreamed of Sam. Sometimes they were kids, sometimes they were adults and lovers, but in the end he always lost him, always woke up with tears streaming down his face. The guilt was fading – hell, the dude could afford to open Ghostbusters International if he thought Dean needed to be replaced – and he was so tired.

*

He sat in a roadside diner like a hundred other diners and tried to focus on the details of another lead over a stale cup of coffee, but his mind wouldn't cooperate. His birthday was in another eight days. If he took care of things then there would be enough left to identify. Sure he'd end up buried under the name of Dean Samuels, but at least he wouldn't be planted somewhere as John Doe 3923. It surprised him how much the thought of such an anonymous burial bothered him. After all, either way there wouldn't be any mourners. And thoughts like that were really helping his mood.

What kind of jerk was he anyway? People were out there dying from things only he knew how to kill and he was sitting here trying not to bawl because he was lonely. Pathetic. At least self-contempt gave him a little variety in how he felt. He needed a change of scenery to clear his head. And some decent coffee. Time to hit the road again until he found a town big enough for a Starbucks.

He packed up his laptop, threw enough money down on the table to cover the bill and a generous tip, then headed out the door. He stopped just outside and stared at his car. Guess he'd waited too long. He'd lost his mind before he'd found the courage to kill himself. So what should he do now? Should he call for help? Should he run for the trunk and hope what he thought was a gun wasn't a flashlight? He started to shake. He didn't want to end up locked in some loony bin where he couldn't even put himself out of his misery.

"Dean."

So his hallucination could talk. Didn't mean anything. But the tears did. They told him Sam was real and that once again Dean had fucked up. Should have know that the only constant in his life was Murphy's Law and that one day he would turn a corner and walk right into Sam. Never should have let his appearance go back to normal or gotten his car back. Harry Williams might have been able to bluff things out, but Dean Samuels sure as hell couldn't.

Before he could think what to do he was in his brother's arms, crushed tight against his chest as Sam hugged him for all he was worth. Then he kissed Dean. A deep hard kiss that made Dean feel warm for the first time in a year. "Sammy," he moaned when their lips parted.

"I found you," Sam said, then kissed him again.

Found him? He was looking? Dean's head spun. He had lost all ability to cope with pleasure and his legs threatened to give out on him. "Sam," he tried again.

"Shut up," Sam told him, then asked, "Do you have a room?"

"Not here."

"Then we'll get one."

Dean felt almost short-circuited. No way he could think clearly enough to get out of this mess, so he did what he always did – he gave Sam what he wanted.

Sam checked them into a small hotel up the street from the coffee shop, then got them both naked the second their room door shut behind them. Dean was flat on his back with Sam deep inside him before he could focus. "Sammy, no," he groaned.

"Shhh," Sam murmured around nibbles on Dean's neck. "It's all right."

"No, your wife." It had been five months since he'd seen them looking for a house. They had to be married by now.

"I'm not married."

"But you were engaged. You were buying a house together."

"A friend helping me." Sam settled his weight onto him, not thrusting. Not moving at all. "I knew you wouldn't let your guard down unless you thought I had every inch of that stupid fantasy."

"You knew I was watching?"

He nodded. "I never knew when, but I knew you were still alive and that meant you'd find a way to know what I was doing."

"How could you have known I was still alive?" His pride actually stung a little. It had been the perfect scam. Then it clicked. "Visions." It was the only possible explanation.

"Yeah. I started having them again two years ago." He sighed. "Right about the time I figured out that I wasn't cut out for a normal life."

Okay, that was unexpected "No?"

"Lots of people can be good lawyers. I'm one of the few who can hunt."

No shit and what had Dean been telling him all those years? He didn't say anything but he gave Sam a look of pure exasperation.

Sam had the grace to look embarrassed. "So I'm about ready to drop out and start hunting again when I have the first vision." He gave Dean another one of those deep kisses.

Given the way he'd felt the last few years it couldn't have been anything good, but he had to ask, "What did you see?"

"Nothing I could use to find you, but I felt … I'm so sorry."

Despair, self-loathing, mind-numbing loneliness – none of it had been anything he'd wanted to share. And let's not forget suicidal. He could see the fear in Sam's eyes and knew his brother had gotten the general idea of what Dean had planned. Must have been half out of his mind with fear he wouldn't get to him in time. "Why didn't you start hunting? I'd have gotten wind of it."

"Yeah, and given what an ass I'd made of myself over not wanting anything to do with the family business, I figured you'd decided you'd screwed up and go even deeper to ground so I'd give up looking."

"Probably." Yeah, he would have hoped Sam would assume he'd gotten some bogus info and gone back to his happy normalness. And he had to admit he was impressed that Sam had figured out what the whole faked-death thing had been about.

"So I did what you wanted me to and hoped you'd slip up. Did the corporate law bit hoping you'd get ticked off enough to confront me about it but no luck."

Dean smiled slightly. "It almost worked."

"Worked anyway. Search engine I designed started lighting up a few weeks after we did the house hunting. Wasn't hard to track you after that."

"I didn't think anyone would be looking."

"Thank God." He shuddered and managed to hold Dean even closer. "Figured out something else, too."

"What?"

"I've wanted you as long as I can remember, but it turns out it wasn't just about that."

"No?"

"Not even close. I love you, Dean. In every way possible, I love you."

Dean had never been good at the mushy stuff, so he kissed Sam and that got those hips moving again. Sam had always known how to make Dean's body come alive in ways no one else could and this time Dean knew love lurked behind each touch. It took him higher than he'd ever flown until he screamed his release into Sam's mouth. When Sam collapsed against him, he figured life couldn't get any better. But the after glow could only last so long and one good ride couldn't chase away all he'd been through.

Sam kissed him again. "Stop thinking, Dean. I'll take care of you."

Because Sam was his brother and he loved him as much as Sam claimed to love Dean, he whispered the truth, "I'm pretty broken, Sammy."

"I know." He kissed him again, then settled down on the bed to hold Dean without crushing him. "But I've got a plan."

"A plan?" Dean was developing a dim view of plans given how costly his had been. Then again, it _had_ worked. "What?"

"First, I take care of whatever it is you're tracking," Sam said, proving to Dean that maybe Sammy did finally get it. "Then we're going to find some quiet little place where we can be alone and I can get you better."

That could take awhile, but Dean knew it had to be that way. Otherwise, he wouldn't last long. Or worse, he'd get Sam killed. "And then?"

"We go hunting."

Dean thought about it. "That's what you want?"

"Yeah, that's what I want."

He smiled slightly. Still didn't know if it would work, but if Sammy wanted him to get better he would. Yeah, in the end it _was_ as simple as that. Because, well, "I never could deny you anything."

end


End file.
